A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 17th July 2001.
Mr Portillo’s preoccupation with minorities is almost exactly what the vast majority of ordinary voters are sick of. The drop of six million in the Conservative vote between 1992 and 2001 is greater than all the minorities combined.
Kenneth Clarke is opposed to the settled views of 85 per cent of his own party and 70 per cent of the electorate on the most fundamental issue of the day.
Mr Duncan Smith represents a chance to wrench the political agenda away from the liberal metropolitan consensus that caricatures any steps of national self-preservation as xenophobic, racist or “unacceptably Right-wing”.
A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 30th May 1998.
Sir Leon Brittan may believe that, as he told a recent Tory Party fringe conference, “no-one in Europe wants a Federal Europe”, but this sentiment has to be set against what British politicians have said, and what has actually happened.
For instance – Sir Harold Wilson: “There was a threat of monetary union, and that has now been removed” (1975 Referendum leaflet); Mr Selwyn Gummer: Monetary Union “is not on the agenda” (Today Programme 1995); Mr Kenneth Clark (Today Programme 1996) brushed aside the issue of the transfer of Britain’s gold and foreign currency reserves to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, when this is explicitly required by the Maastricht Treaty protocol (articles 30 and 42).
Most British people prefer to judge by what influential Continentals say about the EMU project, which is after all their baby – Hans Tietmeyer (Governor of Germany’s Bundesbank): “A European currency will lead to member-states transferring their sovereignty over financial and wages policy as well as financial affairs. It is an illusion to think that states can hold on to their autonomy over taxation affairs”; Karl Lammers (Chancellor Kohl’s spokesman): “EMU is the central part of the project for European unification”; the Vice-President of the Bundesbank: “of course a country which merges its currency completely cannot remain independent politically” (Today Programme 1990).
As for currency stability, Sir Leon talks parochially as if European parities were the only ones that mattered. Had we stayed in the ERM after 1992, the pound would have gone almost to two US dollars, a rate which would have bankrupted many British companies, such as Rolls Royce Aero Engines, with export sales priced in dollars. Over the last four years, the German mark and the other currencies have devalued against the dollar by around 16%, helping their current economic recovery, while the pound has remained essentially stable against the dollar. Currency parities are ultimately indicators of economies’ trading strengths. Attempts to remove these indicators for all time are as vain, and dangerous, as removing a pressure gauge from a boiler.
Letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph which was published on 13th December 1996.
As calls mount in the Conservative Party for the dismissal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for his implied preference for abolishing the pound in favour of a foreign currency, there is an underlying assumption that it’s a pity because he is a rather good chancellor who has “delivered” growth with low inflation.
But much the most worrying feature of Mr Clarke is his inability to understand the economic system entrusted to his care. Interviewed by John Humphrys on the “Today” programme (11 December) the lawyer Mr Clarke opined in his sweeping undergraduate way that “a currency is just a means of exchange”.
Just as he famously boasted that he hadn’t read the Maastricht Treaty, so the enormously complex system of “rights to buy” which money in its various forms represents – cash, deposits, bonds, overdrafts, etc – is airily dismissed by Mr Clarke rather as someone would dismiss the whole structure of our Law as “just a means of paying fines”.
Mr Clarke clearly actually believes that substituting the euro for the pound sterling is really just like having a different design of parking ticket.
Both he, and Mr Blair, need to have their attention drawn for example to Article 30 of the Maastricht Treaty Protocol establishing the European Central Bank (ECB) which will be responsible for the euro.
They can then explain to the British people when and how, should they get their way and abolish the pound, they propose physically to transfer to the ECB around £8,000 Million worth of gold and dollar assets, being Britain’s initial “contribution” to the new Bank’s foreign reserves.
They can also explain how, under Article 30.4, they propose stopping the ECB, should it be so minded, from stripping Britain of the remainder of its gold and dollar assets using the Qualified Majority Voting procedure laid down in Article 42. And in case they are wondering, none of this is open to negotiation; it was all settled four years ago.
